Can you imagine if a man hired a hitman to kill his spouse, he’d be at liberty after his trial? Nor me. Such double standards are to be seen everywhere. It’s one example of the relentless narrative of ‘women are peaceful, men are violent’. A related example is domestic violence (‘DV’). Even though independent studies consistently show female-on-male DV is as common as male-on-female DV – some studies report it’s more common – the police and the courts have a default expectation that men assault women, not vice versa. Women’s accounts of DV are treated as honest, men’s accounts as misleading.

The ‘women peaceful, men violent’ narrative extends, naturally enough, to murder. So when a woman murders a partner or their child(ren), what might account for this allegedly gender-untypical behaviour? It’s simple. Her actions will be attributed to mental health problems (possibly ‘temporary’ problems, hence the age-old ‘crime of passion’ defence, which is only available to women) and she’ll get a sympathetic hearing, and a lenient sentence. When a man commits the same acts they’ll be attributed to the violent natures of men, so he can reliably expect a heavy sentence… and in some jurisdictions, the death penalty.

it’s all over the news that this POS was abused by her husband so she just had to have him killed. but she admits to the hitman that he never beat her. “it’s his attitude” she says. Now doesn’t that explain it?